Chapter Fourteen

Unfortunately, Mira had no more opportunity for questions because Vesper guided her back into the private sitting room where Cecily had resumed her knitting and Colvin was in the process of setting an empty plate into the dumbwaiter. The kitchens were fast, at least.

Cecily looked up and her face brightened when she saw it was Vesper and Mira. She’d had her shoulders up around her ears when they first came in. It looked like she and Colvin weren’t getting along, just yet. His reception of Cecily had cooled noticeably when he realized who she was and Mira knew from the game that he regarded her as an active threat to Violet’s safety. She just hadn’t realized that he formed that opinion before ever meeting Violet in person.

“I’ve given Mister Adelram an outline of his primary responsibilities,” Vesper explained. She guided Mira to a seat and pointed at it in case Mira didn’t get the hint. She was going to be tiresome about the ‘no unnecessarily stimulation or excitement’ rule that Dr. Padre left, Mira could already tell. “He is technically my direct report, but I’ve detached him to your service. We’ll review matters at the end of the fiscal year and, if you both find this partnership agreeable, then you can negotiate a permanent contract then.”

“I’ll be in your care, Mister… Colvin,” Mira hesitated for a second when using his personal name.

“And I yours,” Colvin replied with a smile.

000

The remainder of Mira’s first day with a personal aide was unremarkable. Colvin excused himself to get acquainted with Nanny and Anna. Then he and Nanny left the hotel room together to visit all of Mira’s local properties and make sure that they matched their descriptions in Nanny’s ledger while Cecily sat with Mira.

Vesper received a call on her walking crystal shortly before they left and vanished into her study until dinner, which left Mira and Cecily the task of reviewing candidates for the townhouse staff and Cecily’s ladies maid, which arrived from the service agency Nanny recommended to them in the afternoon post.

Cecily’s maid was an easy choice. In the game, Vesper gave her a budget for lodging and told her to hire a personal servant when circumstances conspired to leave the academy, before she took the exam for early university admission. As fate would have it, Ginger Reed was included among the resumes that the agency sent them and Mira recalled that Ginger said had been looking for a position for a long time before Cecily hired her.

Ginger was the middle daughter of a factory family and had a breathing condition that made it hard for her to work around fumes or airborne particulates. Her condition was also resistant to the cheap healing potions that factory owners used to keep their workforce healthy, so her family sent her to service school in the hopes that she could land a comfortable position as a ladies maid, which they thought was the job best suited to her talents and least likely to endanger her health since the big houses usually had enchantments on the windows to keep pollution and pollen out, while still letting her provide for herself.

What they hadn’t banked on was the fact that most young upper class women trained their own personal attendants from a young age and kept them close long after. Violet’s original maid would have left the household with her in the normal way of things, but she must have been in Madame’s pocket, if Nanny had chosen to replace her. Luckily for Ginger, Cecily’s background made it difficult for her to find someone through personal connections who was already trained, the way Nanny had for Mira.

Ginger was loyal, clever, and street smart in all the ways that Cecily was not. She was the heroine’s primary support in the second game and added an additional layer of difficulty for any player who’d chosen a tricky route to pursue because, not only did you have to keep Cecily from seeing the love interests doing things she didn’t approve of, you also had to make sure Ginger didn’t catch them at it either by giving her errands or switching her day off. She would not hesitate to snitch on the boys.

“This one comes highly recommended by her instructors,” Mira said as she pushed Ginger’s resume over for Cecily’s review. There were a few other candidates, but they weren’t as accomplished. “Her style book has examples of both short and long hairstyles too. Everyone else seems more familiar with long hair.”

“I do like her better than the others,” Cecily admitted once she’d read it over and reviewed Ginger’s book. “I’m still getting used to having short hair, but I might keep it this way. I look very different, don’t I?”

“It flatters you,” Mira agreed. Cecily had big bouncy princess hair in the first game when it was loose from her farmgirl braid, which was probably why her father and brothers made her wear it like that because it made her look and feel like a child in need of guidance. Her short hair, though, made her look closer to her actual age and was in keeping with the woman she would become.

“I’ll ask them to send this girl over tomorrow, in that case,” Cecily agreed with a sunny smile. Then she showed Mira the cook’s resume and sample menu she’d been looking over. “Would you consider this person? She completed the Royal Medical Institute’s Dietary Medicine course. Your condition can be partially managed through diet. Would you be willing to try?”

Mira vaguely recalled hearing about the ketogenic diet being a viable treatment in some of the places she’s lived for epilepsy in children. Was it the same for adults? “We’ll bring her in on a trial run,” she decided out loud. “If the food is inedible, I will hire someone else.”

Cecily started to note down the cook’s name on her little list, but paused. “Senior…” she paused and swallowed. “…are you really alright with me staying with you? You don’t remember everything that’s happened between us. I’m grateful and happy, but I’m also worried that you wouldn’t have made the same choice if you remembered everything.”

“I remember some things,” Mira lied. Actually, Violet’s memories provided little to no information about Cecily at all. If nothing else, that proved to Mira that Violet couldn’t be Cecily’s mysterious bully. Violet had barely even known her and what bits she did remember primarily had to do with Prince Andrei. “I don’t remember tormenting you, but I do remember that you were afraid of me.”

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“That…” Cecily pursed her lips. “…that was something different. I never believed you were the one putting needles in my clothes or stealing my things. I always thought it was my brothers picking on me, but father didn’t like it if I argued with them so I couldn’t say anything and then An… then the others jumped to conclusions and wouldn’t listen to me when I argued with them. No, I–I was nervous around you for a different reason. Vesper told you about—what my first family was doing to me, but you already knew. You came into the bathroom one night while I was washing up and you saw. It was after we’d come back from summer break, so…” she trailed off, looking ashamed.

Mira was surprised to be confronted with a memory. Her memory of the game was a still frame of Cecily standing up in a porcelain tub from the back. Her long hair obscured everything but her ankles and wrists. Violet’s memory showed a skinny and pale little girl lunging for her towel. Her arms and legs were littered with healing welts and a few stray bruises, but her upper arm sported the unmistakable yellow-green outline of a man’s hand.